1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a mobile terminal device and a communication switching method for controlling switching between different communication modes in the mobile terminal device.
2. Description of the Related Art
It has become common to carry an information terminal with a person as terminals with reduced size and weight are available. Recently, a group of users occasionally enjoy an application such as a game together using infrastructure such as a base station and an access point. Meanwhile, the technology of building a wireless ad hoc network for on-demand communication has become widely used (see patent document No. 1).
An ad hoc network does not require a base station or an access point. Therefore, a wireless network can be easily built in locations where such infrastructure is not available. With an ad hoc network, a group of users can enjoy a game together by bringing mobile game devices and communicating with each other wirelessly.
Published U.S. Patent Application 2005/250487
Wireless communication as described above is implemented by using a communication technology defined in IEEE802.11. Information terminals generally have a single communication module implementing such communication technology. Therefore, when applications that will potentially use the communication module are executed in parallel, the applications may compete for the use of the communication module. For this reason, there is called for a technology capable of controlling competing communication requests efficiently.